Where There's a Will...
by Glittering Pegasus
Summary: You know what they say- "Where there's a will, there's a way." But what if the way Will leads to isn't expected or wanted at all?


Title: **Where There's a Will…**  
  


Author: **Dani a.k.a. Glittering Pegasus   
  
**E-mail: **Pegasus1788@aol.com  
  
**website URL: **none  
**  
feedback:**I live for feedback. Especially good feedback ;-)  
**  
distribution:**If you really like it, be my guest! Just remember to send a link.**  
  


Disclaimer**: Alias is a great show but it wasn't created by me. Despite popular belief (lol yeah right) I am neither J.J. Abrams, ABC, nor Bad Robot.    
**  
Summary:**You know what they say… "Where there's a Will, there's a way." But what if the way Will leads to isn't the one you expected? Jenny POV**  
  
rating:**PG for a few curses**  
  
Classification: **General/ Drama/ June-July Credit ****Dauphine**** Challenge**

**Where There's a Will…**

**"So make the best of this test and don't ask why. **

**It's not a question but a lesson learned in time.**

**It's something unpredictable, but in the end there's right…"~Greenday~ Good Riddance**

****

"…And so, it is with great devastation that we say goodbye to our dear friend, loving husband, father, and uncle; Robert Hathaway. I believe his niece, Jenny Phillips would like to come up and say a few words. Jenny?" the preacher gestured to my seat, giving me a warm smile like he could make this all okay. Hah. Like a guy who had never even met my uncle could know all about him and ease his relatives. 

Will Tippin patted my hand before I got up. I weakly smiled at him, then wiped my eye and smoothed a wrinkle from my midnight black mourning dress, then stood. Slowly making my way towards the front of the crowd, I could feel all eyes on me. 

"Robert…Uncle Robert was like a father to me since I was seven years old. My parents weren't around much because of their job and I was always sent to stay with my uncle. 'Uncle Robbie' as I remember." The crowd laughed sympathetically and I smiled, thinking of the innocent days of my childhood. 

I looked out in the group of sad, pink eyed people and saw Will, looking uncomfortable like he has been ever since he started to investigate Danny Hecht's murder. Will and I definitely did not have an easy break- up (if there even is such a thing.) In fact, we were like arch-enemies for a long time after I told him off, quit as his assistant, and left him in the middle of nowhere in the road. But after a while we both got over it and slowly became friends. We talked a lot now. I knew this whole Danny thing was still bugging him. Taking my eyes away from him, I continued. "He was the first to inspire me to become a writer. For a while that didn't work out," I glanced again at Will and he nodded. "But I'm still working on it."

I continued on for five minutes about my favorite memory with my uncle and why I would miss him. Basic funeral speech. When I finished, there was a soft applause and the preacher spoke again. 

I didn't listen. My mind was somewhere else. My thoughts were on the same topic that I knew Will's had been for quite some time. Daniel Hecht. Coming to think of it, what _had happened to him? All I knew was the bits and pieces I had picked up from working with Will. He had been found dead by Sydney Bristow, his fiancée, one night when she came home. He was lying in his bathtub. This was all I knew. And it got me wondering… what connections did he have with this "Kate Jones"? Or Eloise Kurtz? It all had to fit together somehow…_

An hour later, the funeral was over. The wave of black dresses and suits pushed its way out of the grave site and headed towards the limos to go back to Uncle Robbie's house. It always struck me as odd that after a funeral you would go to the dead person's house. A little weird if you ask me, but I climbed into the black limousine anyway. 

The… I wouldn't call it a party since it was definitely not a celebration… but whatever the after funeral get together was called, ended after a long session of tears, more speeches, and more tears. At the very end of it, I stepped outside of the old stone house towards the lush forest across the road. Will followed me. 

"Jenny…are you okay?" 

I nodded. "I'm fine. I just needed some fresh air. You can go on home. Thanks for coming today."

He looked at me strangely. "No problem. Are you sure you're okay?"

'Yes. Positive. Just…one thing. Did you ever find out anything? About Danny's murder, I mean."

He flinched, and there was a flicker in his eyes that told me the discomfort he had in that question. "Umm…no. Nothing. I gave up."

"That's not like you," I replied, getting the feeling that he wasn't telling me the whole truth. 

He answered simply. "I know." He turned and walked away towards the line of cars in front of the house. I went the other way and continued walking into the woods. 

Damn, you really feel small next to those California redwoods. 

My little stroll through the forest was giving me a lot of time to think. I thought about my job, why I had quit. My…um…affair with Will and how that had happened…how much I missed my uncle…but mostly, I thought about Danny Hecht. He was murdered along with a mysterious woman named Kate Jones. Now Eloise Kurtz was dead, too. What did all this have to do with…anything? Like why Will had been acting so strangely? Or why June was infuriated with him? Or why Will couldn't talk about it and when he did he was always lying? Could he have stumbled upon something dangerous while researching? Something that he literally couldn't talk about? But that was crazy. Things like that don't happen in real life…only movies and mystery novels. Still, I had to wonder…

_Oh, Jenny, quit worrying. It's probably nothing but your overactive, reporter wannabe mind messing with you._

I heard a rustling in the bushes and a small white rabbit hopped out, breaking me from my daydreaming. It was then that I realized I'd been walking in the woods for at least a half an hour. I tuned to go back home but found out with a start that I didn't know where home was. 

Oh shit. 

I hadn't been lost in the woods since a Girl Scout trip in the 2nd grade. Which, unfortunately, was also the last lesson I'd had in finding my way back when I was lost. I tried to piece together techniques… moss grows towards civilization… look for animal tracks… retrace your footprints…. Well, I couldn't find any moss, and the dirt ground was too dusty to see any tracks, animal or my own. What was I going to do? Nothing much to do but keep walking, lost in my thoughts. 

I'm not sure how much time passed of me fighting my way through that deep, mysterious forest. Twenty minutes? Thirty? Forty?  I don't know exactly, but after what seemed like an eternity I finally spotted a thin sliver of blue shining through the jade trees in the distance. 

_Yes! I'm out!_

Screw the ankle- breaking high heals. I ran as fast as I could towards the blue and it quickly became larger. I burst out of the patch of trees into the dim early evening sunlight. What time was it exactly? Searching my surroundings, I saw a clock on the outside of a bank. Glowing orange letters lit from it. 

**6/17/02****…****6:33 p.m****…. 86 degrees… **

Well at least I had a sense of time now. But I still didn't know where I was. This was definitely not the place I had entered hours ago. I looked around. It seemed kind of like a dead town. There weren't many people and the bank seemed like the only breath of life that this part of town had to offer. The only other buildings were a small, peeled paint 7/11, and a tall, dark building whose sign was almost too faded to read. 

_Johnson Peters Warehouse_

Great. Now what? I considered going into the bank and asking for help, but I didn't feel like dealing with lots of people right now. And after waiting in lines at the bank people sure aren't too friendly. So instead, I started towards the 7/11. 

While crossing to it, I thought I heard something from the direction of the warehouse. Muffled voices, speaking in hush-hush tones. Creeping closer to it, I placed my ear against the wooden board door leading to a chain link gate. I could now make out bits and pieces of what the people, a man and a woman I think, were saying. 

"…CIA wants… to bring…SD-6…so…counter mission…" the man was saying.

"…So this…huge…will it…? Are…sure?" the woman answered. Her voice sounded vaguely familiar, like I'd definitely heard it before. I couldn't quite place where…

"Yeah…are…okay? You seem… bothering…?"

I moved, very quietly, towards the gate and listened closer. I still couldn't see the people except for a dark outline. 

The woman was replying to the man's concerns. "Yes, I'm fine. It's just… nothing."

The man wasn't settling for that answer. "Tell me the truth. I know something's wrong."

"Well…today… this was the day I met Danny. It's just kind of on my mind."

_Danny! Was she talking about Danny Hecht? _

"Oh, Sydney…I'm sorry."

_Yes! The girl is __Sydney__! Sydney Bristow! Will's best friend! _

I had met Sydney at her and her roommate's Thanksgiving party a long time ago. We'd also seen each other through Will on a few occasions. That's why she was so familiar. What was she doing in an old warehouse with some guy talking about the CIA?

At this point, I realized that I could've been missing important parts of the conversation while my mind ran around in confused circles. 

"I'll be okay. I just still hurt, you know? I did love him a lot…it kills me to know I can't ever again go out on a date with him… or marry him…or even see him other than in my dreams," Sydney explained regretfully. 

The man laughed a little sadly. "I know what that's like."

Hmm…my instincts were telling me that there was more than a professional relationship between these two….

"Vaughn…why did I have to tell him? Why couldn't I have just kept my big mouth shut for once? I got Danny killed because I couldn't keep a frieken secret. It's my fault SD-6 killed him. I deserve this."

Okay, so what important information have I gathered here? The man was named Vaughn, apparently Sydney's boss or partner in some type of secret job. It could possibly be government work. Danny was killed by someone or something called "SD-6" because Sydney had told him…something. 

_Wow, poor __Sydney__. That's really terrible. _

Vaughn replied softly, "No, Syd. No one deserves to live like this. Especially not you. After everything you do, all the times you've almost died, all the pain you've endured. All just to save other people. You really believe that you deserve to be living alone and guilt ridden?"

"Everyone I love has something terrible happen to them. I think it's a curse. Danny, Noah, Will…"

_Will?! What had happened to Will?_

"Syd…Will's torture was not your fault. He decided to take a risk and he found out too much. That is _not your fault."_

Ahh. So Will was…tortured!? No wonder he was so different now! Why had he been tortured? And by who? How did this all connect with SD-6 and the CIA and Danny Hecht? All this information swirling around in my head made me a little unstable, and I felt my knees buckle just the slightest bit, enough for my hand to have to grab onto the chain link fence to remain standing. It caused only the tiniest clattering that a normal person wouldn't notice, but two people with what I'm guessing was government experience were trained to hear things like that. 

Sydney snapped her head around. I held my breath. 

"What is it?" Vaughn asked her, turning his head towards me as well. 

"You… you didn't hear that?" Sydney whispered. 

"Hear what?"

Sydney didn't answer. She walked slowly in my direction to the gate. My heart was pounding. The last thing I needed was to be caught eavesdropping by my ex's best friend. 

Just before she reached me, Sydney shook her head. "Nothing. I just thought I heard something at the gate." I let out the breath I'd been holding.

Vaughn's face filled with concern and worry lines etched into his forehead. "Do you think you were followed?"

"No. I would've noticed. There was no one around me my whole way here," she answered. 

"You're sure?" Vaughn asked again. 

"Quit worrying. I'm positive."

A mouse ran by my foot. I bit my lip and gathered all my will power to prevent myself from making even the slightest shriek. But keeping my mouth shut took my attention away from other things, like keeping my balance. I tripped, this time _hard. Toppling backwards, I hit a wooden crate and knocked it over, creating a bang that echoed through the eeriness of the building. This time, there was no way they would shrug the noise off. _

Knowing I'd been discovered anyway, I whimpered. "Ouch." I quickly got to my feet and brushed the brown grime from the dusty floor off my black dress. Standing, I found myself face to face with Sydney Bristow. "Umm...hi. How are you...um...doing?"

"I know you…" Sydney trailed off, examining my face in deep concentration and squinting through the shadows. "Jenny. You're Jenny."

I nodded. 

"How much did you hear? How long have you been there listening?" she demanded. Vaughn came by her side. 

"Who is this?" he asked. 

"I'm Jenny. Jenny Phillips. May I ask what the hell you are involved with?" I snapped, looking in Sydney's direction. 

"Look, Jenny… you don't want to get yourself into this. You really don't. You have no idea what that could lead to," Sydney told me, looking at Vaughn with uncertainty.

"Get myself into what? What is this? What could it lead to? You can't just push me out of this now!" I exclaimed. 

Vaughn looked back at Sydney and shrugged. "There's not much we can do to help her now, Syd. She's already gotten herself in too far to turn back."

Sydney nodded understandingly and gave me a serious look. "There's a lot you don't know, Jenny. A lot you don't understand. I guess it's hard to handle that. It was hard for Will, too. That's how he ended up with half his mouth missing. But I guess you're willing to take a risk?"

This was way too hard to swallow. What did all this mean? I couldn't understand anything. It was all so…confusing and…difficult. I had no idea what was happening or how to get myself out of it. All I could do was curtly answer, "Yes."

"Alright. Jenny, I'm Agent Michael Vaughn with the CIA. I'm assuming you know Agent Bristow."

I nodded. 

"Well, we're going to tell you things. Things that no one else outside this room who is not involved with the CIA can ever know. At least not until SD-6 is brought down. Do you understand? No one can ever hear what we are about to tell you. No one. No matter how much you trust them or love them. No matter how much you may be dying to admit everything or how much someone begs and pleads for you to tell them. If any of this gets out, not only will Sydney and myself be killed, but you as well. And whoever you told. Got that?"

"Uh-huh," I promised, eyes wide open in terror and anticipation. I sat myself of a crate and Sydney and Vaughn did the same. 

Sydney looked at me with a glare that I'll never forget as long as I live. It was full of worry and wonder and…sympathy. Then she began her unbelievable story. "It all began almost 8 years ago now. During my first year at U.C.L.A., I was recruited by an organization called SD-6. They said they were a top secret branch of the CIA that I could never tell anyone about. But, like a total idiot, I disobeyed and told Danny Hecht, my fiancé. Arvin Sloane, the head of SD-6 found out and had him killed. That's when I realized that SD-6 is really working against the CIA, not for it-"

"Wait, so SD-6 lies to its own employees?" I cut in. 

"Yes," Sydney answered, then went on. "Anyway, when I found that out I went to the real CIA for help. I became a double agent for the CIA. They assigned Vaughn as my handler. Now, it's like my soul mission in life to take down SD-6. Kind of like revenge for them killing Danny."

"So…so all those trips you went on. All the times you left without a word and Will came running to me about it…"

"Yes. That's why," she replied flatly. 

"Oh my God…Sydney, I don't know what to say."

"There's not much you can say. But now you've got a decision to make if you don't want to end up brutally tortured like Will. We can send you into hiding, in a safe house; at least until we know you're not in any danger. Or… if you can't stand the thought of being in hiding, even if just for a while, there's another option…" her voice faded. Vaughn nodded to her encouragingly. 

"What is it?" I urged.

"Well…we can recruit you for the CIA."

I hadn't expected that. But what could I say? What was I supposed to do? What was the right choice? Throw away my life and live in secret, or risk my life every day for a secret? Neither were ideal choices, but I had gotten myself into this. Why had I gotten myself into this? What was I supposed to do? What…?

Vaughn spoke again, his voice filled with regret. "Look, I know this isn't easy at all. But I have to say…you can't have a long time to decide this. It's now or never. We can't send you back outside this building knowing what you know unless we have a safe course of action for you."

I nodded, my eyes filling with tears that refused to fall. "You know, when I woke up this morning I never expected this. I was just Jenny Phillips, a former reporter's assistant and a girl who was going to her uncle's funeral. But now…now I don't know what to think."

"I know exactly how that feels," Sydney replied softly. 

I looked down and felt the cool metal of my silver locket sway against the back of my neck. I rubbed the charm slowly and opened the locket. Inside was a picture of my uncle and me from when I was at least nine years old. His smile in the picture seemed to me aimed right at me, encouraging me to do the right thing. 

_Please let this be the right thing. _

"Wh…when do I…how do I start?" I managed to stutter out. 

I swear I saw something flicker on the other two agents faces when I said that. Smiles. 

Maybe this was the right thing after all. Maybe this was even a good thing. Maybe it was what I was meant to do, not file paperwork for other people. I did always like action movies. 

Vaughn and Sydney led me out of the warehouse and towards a new destiny that I was just beginning to face. I might have woken up this morning as Jenny Phillips, former assistant for reporter Will Tippin, but now…call me Agent Phillips. 

_Thanks, Uncle Robbie. _

**          
  
  
**


End file.
